The Tale of a Murder 'Made in France'
Guénady
February 02, 2010
As this author has had occasion to note in previous writings, America's Sister Republic, a leader among the 'free' countries of the West, ostensibly a democracy and one of the inventors of the concept of 'Human Rights', this country drops a mask to reveal quite a different face to all too many citizens the instant they try to exercise their pretended civil liberties and human rights.
Such 'surprises' have become common in our modern world, where the 'free' and developed countries are goose-stepping, hand in hand, towards globalization, proclaiming this the great hope for the future of civilization. To intensify the smoke in the public's eyes, this hope has been confirmed and sanctified by puppet intellectuals, given, first, reputations (nothing could be easier if you have deep pockets and manipulate the press), then bullhorns so as to proclaim globalization a necessary and moral progress in society. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting are slow to see that rather than evolving towards greater freedom in our individual pursuits of happiness (excepting the freedom to consume, which is restricted only by the size of our incomes and lines of credit), we are more and more boxed-in, unable to act, not even to stretch our wings, let alone to dream of flying.
The author has already had occasion to point out, in previous writings, a number of examples of recent events in France which expose fundamental contradictions in la Republique. [For example, the massacre of 'French' Arabs protesting inequalities in Paris in 1961, just forty-nine years ago (three hundred and twenty-seven –yes, 327-- of those tortured and murdered by French police were dumped into the Seine as a warning to other Arabs to 'stay in their place', an event never reported in France's 'free' press), to the missing ransom which the then (1993) new Minister of the Budget, Nicolas Sarkozy, withdrew from the national Treasury, so as to pay a hostage-taker of preschool children holed up in a school in the Paris suburb where Sarkozy was also then mayor. But the impressive sum demanded, and which the young Minister was prepared to pay, never went to whom it was intended, an unbalanced, newly bankrupt businessman from Nice, desperate to put his hands on a share of the 'easy money' that circulates so freely, and so flagrantly, in certain echelons of French society. Instead, an elite police intervention squad put three bullets into the hostage-taker's head while he slept, having drunk the drugged coffee sent in to him. In the free-for-all which followed this shooting, the (very) few journalists who raised questions about where the ransom money went, were, and stilll are, ignored. In a take-off on an old French proverb, some here claim that he who steals an egg goes to prison, but he who steals a bull goes to the Palais Bourbon [NB, the French equivalent of Capital Hill], unless, of course, he lands in the Elysée Palace first.
Be all that as it may, the checks and balances America's Founding Fathers instituted in the structure of their new government 'by the people and for the people', theoretically exist in France's government as well. And yet, everywhere today, on both sides of the Atlantic, corruption has eroded the people's institutions, and particularly in France, where the public has little sense of responsibilty for the way the government is run. Instead, the French are conditioned, from serfdom and before, to accept what Authority condescends to give them. Yes, the country is run by elected leaders, and the elections do seem free and fair. Still, the elected candidates come 99% from the same mold, forming a ruling clique that springs directly from the petite bourgoisie that usurped the privileges and power of the monarchy and aristocracy after the 1789 Revolution. In this clique, society's leaders have the same bourgois background, and the same class interests. Meanwhile, the 'under-privileged' majority is conditioned to believe that those above, with their superior educations and positions in society, 'know' in a way that the common people cannot 'know'... And so deeply is this idea ingrained that the people give their trust, again and again, to those who muddle through the Affairs of State, despite manifest incompetence (the common people aren't listening anyway, since they do not expect to be able to understand) and flagrant self-serving. Only a people subjugated over centuries (indeed, millennia), the great-grandchildren of surfs, and bought off by consumer comforts, could believe that such an inherently elitist government is democratic and republican.
That today's French president is, himself, a first-generation product of immigration, may seem a change for the better in republican freedoms, but, looking more closely, we see that, coupled with an exceptionally strong (some say ruthless) drive for power, Sarkozy's training and early career, as a lawyer, already placed him, particularly at that time, on a footing with the higher levels of French society. One day, but probably not any time soon, investigative journalists will delve into the motivations for the Sarkozy family's immigration from Hungary, which followed the fall of totalitarian rule there, when the favorites of that Old Regime were routed.
In France, the Fourth Estate, the 'free' press, is another example of republican folklore, as the case of journalist Guillaume Dasquié illustrates. Having published an article in Le Monde, on April 17, 2007, entitled, 'Le 11 septembre - Les Français en Savaient Long' [9/11 - the French Knew A Lot], which made quite a stir at the time in French and international circles, Dasquié was thereafter the object of an early morning home visit by six agents of the DST ('Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire', or the French equivalent of the FBI), who put him under arrest, searched his papers and finally gave him a choice, reveal the source of the information in his article, or face prolonged detention. When Dasquié pointed out that such detention would be illegal, the agents agreed, but affirmed that it would take him six months, more or less, in the courts to prove this, and in the meantime his family, wife and infant children, would be deprived of his presence. (For the record, in order to avoid separation from his family, Dasquié tearfully admitted having given the DST 'a name'.) As an upshot to this story, the Palais Bourbon has just voted (December 2009) for a much debated and watered-down draft law (another) guaranteeing investigative journalists the right to protect the anonimity of their sources... Yet, who can doubt but that if the previously existing laws were so lightly flaunted by the Government's strong-arms, a new one will be too, when and if that suits those in power.
Andrée Valadier, president and founder of 'La Société Nationale de Défense des Animaux' (SNDA) was a thorn in the side of practically everyone involved in animal exploitation. Only the true friends of animals were spared her wicked wit and biting irony. Undaunted, after 32 years of fighting the good fight, to so little avail, constantly on the front lines of animal cruelty, and frequently subjected to 'disappointments' at the hands of those who proclaim themselves 'friends' of the animals, Madame Valadier often said, 'We live in a world of horrors...' and, 'We [she and her daughter, Maryvonne] are more and more alone, because we cannot agree with the others.'
Alone she and Maryvonne may have been among French animal defenders, but their dauntless courage and integrity attracted an impressive following in the general French public (at the time of her murder, the SNDA counted 17,000 members), mostly, as in all our industrial societies, people not in a position to do anything themselves, but who are prepared to give, even at the cost of personal sacrifice, in order to support the work of those acting efficiently to end animal cruelty and exploitation. The mother and daughter team struck a responsive chord with ordinary people all over France, for with true friends of the animals, the two women were accessible, patient and down-to-earth, personally answering the mail they received from every corner of the country, and even from foreign lands. Madame Valadier, a brilliant, self-educated woman, wrote some of the finest tracts ever to appear in French, and on every aspect of animal exploitation, having them printed and then freely distributed. With Maryvonne, she manned information tables at Salons and Expositions, participated in international conferences, and even obtained the status of a recognized charity with the right to a 'consulting voice' in the Ministry of Agriculture. She visited animal shelters as well, all over France (most of them concentration camps, in her opinion), personally investigating cases of cruelty and, her greatest passion, attacking animal abusers in the courts. 'Of course we need new laws,' she was fond of saying, 'but before we fight for that, let's get the existing laws enforced!'
She had a childlike naivté in regard to the ultimate potential fairness of the French judicial system, despite the disappointments she had suffered. However, events after her death, around her last lawsuit, might well have brought her to despair (a hard-won judicial decision against an institutional abuser was overturned because, it was claimed in court, without its president and founder, the SNDA no longer existed to pursue the suit) . She also believed in the ultimate fairness of the 'Renseignements Generaux', the French internal intelligence-gathering police, insisting that their main function at demonstrations was to protect the demonstrators from counter-demonstrators, not to 'finger' those present.
No one knows what motivated Andrée Valadier to take up the torch in her long campaign to defend animals. What is known is that she came from modest circumstances and married a wealthy businessman who died when Maryvonne, their only child, was still very young. After that, she withdrew Maryvonne from school, educating her at home, while undertaking volunteer work with the Paris SPA ('Société pour la Protection des Animaux').
After her death (aged 76), the police spread, practically unhindered, slanderous allegations against Maryvonne (48 years), pretending that in the 'fusional' relationship between the two women, the daughter was dominated and crushed by the mother's strong will, which bred a long-standing resentment that, according to them, erupted into a hatred which motivated the murder. This story, of course, conveniently portrayed both women as crackpots, thus automatically discrediting their 32 years of work for animals.
At this same crucial moment, some of Madame Valadier's most vociferous adversaries, the bullfighting clan (with their reputed mafia ties) were quick to propagate the additional rumor that Andrée Valadier's passion for defending animals sprang from the abuse Maryvonne practiced as a child. In a personal interview with the two women's closest collaborator from those early days, the author was told, in this regard, 'If anything, the young Maryvonne was even more committed to defending animals than her mother, often pushing her mother in new directions.' It is not from the mouths of her enemies that we will learn anything new about Andrée Valadier, except, perhaps, about the quality of her work, which so clearly inspired so much undying, bottomless enmity, as well as, somewhere, a further decision to commit murder..
As an aside, in regard to the pro-corrida lobby, do not believe that it is based on blood-lust alone, even when dressed-up as 'art'. The truth is that the corrida in France, as elsewhere, generates Big Bucks from ticket sales, many to ignorant tourists who don't know what they are paying to see, and also, it is asserted, from the illicit sale of the bulls' flesh to eat, prized for its supposed 'virile qualities'. Try standing outside the old Roman arena in Fréjus, one hour's drive west on the 'autoroute' from Nice (or in any other corrida town in France), on any 14th of July, or 15th of August, and listen to the crowds cheering inside as the six bulls in each corrida are tortured and bled, then their brains scrambled with a dagger, in front of an approving crowd. This might flash you back to what went on in that same arena in ancient times. (In the Middle Ages, even the executions of criminals and heretics were public, and people came with the whole family to eat picnics and watch.) You may observe the six bloody corpses dragged out and hoisted by crane into (usually) municipal pickup trucks, the six massive, horned, furry bodies driven off, ostensibly to the rendering plant, but (at least in Fréjus) those who follow, until blocked, affirm that the direction taken is not consistent with that claim. When you have done these things, you may agree with Madame Valadier, 'We live in a world of horrors'.]
The Paris SPA, where Andrée Valadier began her work for animals, has been and continues to be (like so many other SPAs, all over the world) beleagered by accusations of misappropriation of money and other goods willed and donated to the cause of protecting animals. Whatever Andrée Valadier witnessed during her years of volonteer work at the Paris SPA, she kept it to herself, for the most part, yet she was prompted to quit that organization and to set up her own, the SNDA, in 1972, when 'defending animals' had not yet become fashionable.
From the start, her intention to do better than the SPA gave Andrée Valadier's work an exceptional seriousness. Those who could not match this seriousness either trailed behind in awe, or became hostile, perhaps embarrassed by their own mediocrity in comparison... There are those everywhere, and particularly in the nooks and crannies of this country, where few ever poke their noses to check on the conditions unfortunate animals are subjected to, who profit personally by the public's goodwill and donations, leaving just enough for the intended purpose to maintain a pretence that keeps the flow of funds coming. In too many places like these, the welfare of the animals caught up in such institutions depends on the goodwill of individuals on-the-spot and their willingness to get involved, to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, and particularly against their false 'friends'. Madame Valadier and Maryvonne were invariably the allies of such people, always available for consultation, advice, and other support. Their names and their faces were little known to the public, as they wanted it, honor and publicity going to the SNDA instead. And it is not amiss to note that mother and daughter were both aware of the dangers involved in their work, taking many precautions in order to ensure their personal safety. But the Valadiers were soldiers, never 'off duty', or 'out of touch' for any length of time, never flinching in what they felt they had to do. (Information concerning the physical circumstances in which Madame Validier's body was found, which filtered through the police barrage, lead this author to conclude that she was tortured before she was allowed to die. If this is so, then the author is certain that this incredibly strong-willed woman died without ever an instant regretting a single act of animal defense that led her to that end. Indeed, she would have spit in the eyes of her torturers.)
After Madame Valadier's murder, when the Police were discreetly spearheading an effort to get her foundation turned over to two 'animal defenders' guaranteed not to follow in her footsteps, one person single-handedly stepped in to block that, and what was to all intents and purposes a 'done' deal. Those directly concerned with the running of the SNDA were, each and every one, in agreement with this 'transmission of authority', including the transfer of the funds in the foundation's treasury, until this single individual stepped in and pushed them all to oppose that transfer, not least because the candidate designated by the police as 'Maryvonne's choice' had, as sole qualification for running a national animal defense foundation, his experience as director of an SPA in central France, where the main activity was maintaining a shelter for stray dogs, the conditions of which had already been, for some time, denounced on the internet, with photos exposing violations of the law, all of which neither Madame Valadier, nor Maryvonne could ever have tolerated.
This phony takeover attempt having been averted at the 11th hour, the members of the foundation's Board suddenly awakened to the possible personal interests each might have in the future functioning of the foundation. Never having found collaborators of her own quality and exceptional commitment, Madame Valadier had settled for 'collaborators' who lent her their names and their prestige, but who kept their noses out of her work, which she kept strictly to herself and Maryvonne. After the Foundation's rescue from its first takeover attempt, these persons (exclusively women, for Andrée Valadier felt that most animal abusers are men and hence she profoundly distrusted that sex) jumped into the fray (certainly with police encouragement, the aim undoubtedly being to ensure that the Valadiers' foundation did not end up in the hands of anyone who might attempt to follow in their footsteps). Under these 'directors', Madame Valadier's work has been 'dumbed down', meaning that the foundation continues to exist, but with no impact on the status of animals in French society, which is just what the powers that be expect of all French animal defense associations.
Yet, there are some here (for this/these murder/s could not have been carried out by one person alone) who know/s the truth about the Valadiers' deaths (for it is 'officially' asserted that Maryvonne committed suicide after murdering her mother). Those who carried out this crime were people who (there are not, after all, 36 possibilities to be envisaged) either were themselves in the government at that time, and able to give orders to the Criminal Police about handling this case, or the people responsible for this murder were, and still are, protected by someone who was in the government at that time and able to render them this service. Shall we note, as an aside, that at the top of the chain of command of the various French polices at the time was the Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy?
Whatever, French animal defense associations and foundations (with one exception, the high-profile founder of which is ceaselessly discredited in the media as a 'crackpot', too) are in step with the unspoken imperative that animal exploitation in France should not be threatened with real change. Change is tolerable only as a subject of discussion, pie-in-the-sky for some eternally future day, nothing more. French animal defense organizations should channel the public's concern and financial support into deadends, while animal exploitation, which generates such vast wealth in so many industries, continues to function unhindered.
The animal defenders the Valadiers inspired, bereft of her vision and the tool of her foundation, while facing so much corruption in society's institutions, may see only one real way to proceed with their work, that is, by intervening directly with consumers, informing and educating (a task Andrée Valadier had made her own), so that those who pay the revenues reaped from animal suffering will contribute to this no longer. Consumers vote every time they buy, or do not buy, the products of animal suffering. And when they choose to consume these products anyway, they are only contributing to their own de-humanization. For the products of animal suffering are, without exception, physically and morally degrading to Man..
Yes, at the same time that certain consumer products exploit animals, these same products exploit, as well, the very consumers who are hoodwinked into buying them. The consciousness of this mutual exploitation is knowledge which the profiteers do not want consumers to wake up to. For when they do, they will wake up to the truth of what Andrée and Maryvonne Valadier spent their lives demonstrating :
At the core of human dignity, there is also justice for the animals.'
NB : The reader may be interested to know that Guenady has written a fictionalized account of this murder in the book, 'Don't Defend Animals', available from the publisher, Trafford, or on Amazon.
Such 'surprises' have become common in our modern world, where the 'free' and developed countries are goose-stepping, hand in hand, towards globalization, proclaiming this the great hope for the future of civilization. To intensify the smoke in the public's eyes, this hope has been confirmed and sanctified by puppet intellectuals, given, first, reputations (nothing could be easier if you have deep pockets and manipulate the press), then bullhorns so as to proclaim globalization a necessary and moral progress in society. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting are slow to see that rather than evolving towards greater freedom in our individual pursuits of happiness (excepting the freedom to consume, which is restricted only by the size of our incomes and lines of credit), we are more and more boxed-in, unable to act, not even to stretch our wings, let alone to dream of flying.
The author has already had occasion to point out, in previous writings, a number of examples of recent events in France which expose fundamental contradictions in la Republique. [For example, the massacre of 'French' Arabs protesting inequalities in Paris in 1961, just forty-nine years ago (three hundred and twenty-seven –yes, 327-- of those tortured and murdered by French police were dumped into the Seine as a warning to other Arabs to 'stay in their place', an event never reported in France's 'free' press), to the missing ransom which the then (1993) new Minister of the Budget, Nicolas Sarkozy, withdrew from the national Treasury, so as to pay a hostage-taker of preschool children holed up in a school in the Paris suburb where Sarkozy was also then mayor. But the impressive sum demanded, and which the young Minister was prepared to pay, never went to whom it was intended, an unbalanced, newly bankrupt businessman from Nice, desperate to put his hands on a share of the 'easy money' that circulates so freely, and so flagrantly, in certain echelons of French society. Instead, an elite police intervention squad put three bullets into the hostage-taker's head while he slept, having drunk the drugged coffee sent in to him. In the free-for-all which followed this shooting, the (very) few journalists who raised questions about where the ransom money went, were, and stilll are, ignored. In a take-off on an old French proverb, some here claim that he who steals an egg goes to prison, but he who steals a bull goes to the Palais Bourbon [NB, the French equivalent of Capital Hill], unless, of course, he lands in the Elysée Palace first.
Be all that as it may, the checks and balances America's Founding Fathers instituted in the structure of their new government 'by the people and for the people', theoretically exist in France's government as well. And yet, everywhere today, on both sides of the Atlantic, corruption has eroded the people's institutions, and particularly in France, where the public has little sense of responsibilty for the way the government is run. Instead, the French are conditioned, from serfdom and before, to accept what Authority condescends to give them. Yes, the country is run by elected leaders, and the elections do seem free and fair. Still, the elected candidates come 99% from the same mold, forming a ruling clique that springs directly from the petite bourgoisie that usurped the privileges and power of the monarchy and aristocracy after the 1789 Revolution. In this clique, society's leaders have the same bourgois background, and the same class interests. Meanwhile, the 'under-privileged' majority is conditioned to believe that those above, with their superior educations and positions in society, 'know' in a way that the common people cannot 'know'... And so deeply is this idea ingrained that the people give their trust, again and again, to those who muddle through the Affairs of State, despite manifest incompetence (the common people aren't listening anyway, since they do not expect to be able to understand) and flagrant self-serving. Only a people subjugated over centuries (indeed, millennia), the great-grandchildren of surfs, and bought off by consumer comforts, could believe that such an inherently elitist government is democratic and republican.
That today's French president is, himself, a first-generation product of immigration, may seem a change for the better in republican freedoms, but, looking more closely, we see that, coupled with an exceptionally strong (some say ruthless) drive for power, Sarkozy's training and early career, as a lawyer, already placed him, particularly at that time, on a footing with the higher levels of French society. One day, but probably not any time soon, investigative journalists will delve into the motivations for the Sarkozy family's immigration from Hungary, which followed the fall of totalitarian rule there, when the favorites of that Old Regime were routed.
In France, the Fourth Estate, the 'free' press, is another example of republican folklore, as the case of journalist Guillaume Dasquié illustrates. Having published an article in Le Monde, on April 17, 2007, entitled, 'Le 11 septembre - Les Français en Savaient Long' [9/11 - the French Knew A Lot], which made quite a stir at the time in French and international circles, Dasquié was thereafter the object of an early morning home visit by six agents of the DST ('Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire', or the French equivalent of the FBI), who put him under arrest, searched his papers and finally gave him a choice, reveal the source of the information in his article, or face prolonged detention. When Dasquié pointed out that such detention would be illegal, the agents agreed, but affirmed that it would take him six months, more or less, in the courts to prove this, and in the meantime his family, wife and infant children, would be deprived of his presence. (For the record, in order to avoid separation from his family, Dasquié tearfully admitted having given the DST 'a name'.) As an upshot to this story, the Palais Bourbon has just voted (December 2009) for a much debated and watered-down draft law (another) guaranteeing investigative journalists the right to protect the anonimity of their sources... Yet, who can doubt but that if the previously existing laws were so lightly flaunted by the Government's strong-arms, a new one will be too, when and if that suits those in power.
Andrée Valadier, president and founder of 'La Société Nationale de Défense des Animaux' (SNDA) was a thorn in the side of practically everyone involved in animal exploitation. Only the true friends of animals were spared her wicked wit and biting irony. Undaunted, after 32 years of fighting the good fight, to so little avail, constantly on the front lines of animal cruelty, and frequently subjected to 'disappointments' at the hands of those who proclaim themselves 'friends' of the animals, Madame Valadier often said, 'We live in a world of horrors...' and, 'We [she and her daughter, Maryvonne] are more and more alone, because we cannot agree with the others.'
Alone she and Maryvonne may have been among French animal defenders, but their dauntless courage and integrity attracted an impressive following in the general French public (at the time of her murder, the SNDA counted 17,000 members), mostly, as in all our industrial societies, people not in a position to do anything themselves, but who are prepared to give, even at the cost of personal sacrifice, in order to support the work of those acting efficiently to end animal cruelty and exploitation. The mother and daughter team struck a responsive chord with ordinary people all over France, for with true friends of the animals, the two women were accessible, patient and down-to-earth, personally answering the mail they received from every corner of the country, and even from foreign lands. Madame Valadier, a brilliant, self-educated woman, wrote some of the finest tracts ever to appear in French, and on every aspect of animal exploitation, having them printed and then freely distributed. With Maryvonne, she manned information tables at Salons and Expositions, participated in international conferences, and even obtained the status of a recognized charity with the right to a 'consulting voice' in the Ministry of Agriculture. She visited animal shelters as well, all over France (most of them concentration camps, in her opinion), personally investigating cases of cruelty and, her greatest passion, attacking animal abusers in the courts. 'Of course we need new laws,' she was fond of saying, 'but before we fight for that, let's get the existing laws enforced!'
She had a childlike naivté in regard to the ultimate potential fairness of the French judicial system, despite the disappointments she had suffered. However, events after her death, around her last lawsuit, might well have brought her to despair (a hard-won judicial decision against an institutional abuser was overturned because, it was claimed in court, without its president and founder, the SNDA no longer existed to pursue the suit) . She also believed in the ultimate fairness of the 'Renseignements Generaux', the French internal intelligence-gathering police, insisting that their main function at demonstrations was to protect the demonstrators from counter-demonstrators, not to 'finger' those present.
No one knows what motivated Andrée Valadier to take up the torch in her long campaign to defend animals. What is known is that she came from modest circumstances and married a wealthy businessman who died when Maryvonne, their only child, was still very young. After that, she withdrew Maryvonne from school, educating her at home, while undertaking volunteer work with the Paris SPA ('Société pour la Protection des Animaux').
After her death (aged 76), the police spread, practically unhindered, slanderous allegations against Maryvonne (48 years), pretending that in the 'fusional' relationship between the two women, the daughter was dominated and crushed by the mother's strong will, which bred a long-standing resentment that, according to them, erupted into a hatred which motivated the murder. This story, of course, conveniently portrayed both women as crackpots, thus automatically discrediting their 32 years of work for animals.
At this same crucial moment, some of Madame Valadier's most vociferous adversaries, the bullfighting clan (with their reputed mafia ties) were quick to propagate the additional rumor that Andrée Valadier's passion for defending animals sprang from the abuse Maryvonne practiced as a child. In a personal interview with the two women's closest collaborator from those early days, the author was told, in this regard, 'If anything, the young Maryvonne was even more committed to defending animals than her mother, often pushing her mother in new directions.' It is not from the mouths of her enemies that we will learn anything new about Andrée Valadier, except, perhaps, about the quality of her work, which so clearly inspired so much undying, bottomless enmity, as well as, somewhere, a further decision to commit murder..
As an aside, in regard to the pro-corrida lobby, do not believe that it is based on blood-lust alone, even when dressed-up as 'art'. The truth is that the corrida in France, as elsewhere, generates Big Bucks from ticket sales, many to ignorant tourists who don't know what they are paying to see, and also, it is asserted, from the illicit sale of the bulls' flesh to eat, prized for its supposed 'virile qualities'. Try standing outside the old Roman arena in Fréjus, one hour's drive west on the 'autoroute' from Nice (or in any other corrida town in France), on any 14th of July, or 15th of August, and listen to the crowds cheering inside as the six bulls in each corrida are tortured and bled, then their brains scrambled with a dagger, in front of an approving crowd. This might flash you back to what went on in that same arena in ancient times. (In the Middle Ages, even the executions of criminals and heretics were public, and people came with the whole family to eat picnics and watch.) You may observe the six bloody corpses dragged out and hoisted by crane into (usually) municipal pickup trucks, the six massive, horned, furry bodies driven off, ostensibly to the rendering plant, but (at least in Fréjus) those who follow, until blocked, affirm that the direction taken is not consistent with that claim. When you have done these things, you may agree with Madame Valadier, 'We live in a world of horrors'.]
The Paris SPA, where Andrée Valadier began her work for animals, has been and continues to be (like so many other SPAs, all over the world) beleagered by accusations of misappropriation of money and other goods willed and donated to the cause of protecting animals. Whatever Andrée Valadier witnessed during her years of volonteer work at the Paris SPA, she kept it to herself, for the most part, yet she was prompted to quit that organization and to set up her own, the SNDA, in 1972, when 'defending animals' had not yet become fashionable.
From the start, her intention to do better than the SPA gave Andrée Valadier's work an exceptional seriousness. Those who could not match this seriousness either trailed behind in awe, or became hostile, perhaps embarrassed by their own mediocrity in comparison... There are those everywhere, and particularly in the nooks and crannies of this country, where few ever poke their noses to check on the conditions unfortunate animals are subjected to, who profit personally by the public's goodwill and donations, leaving just enough for the intended purpose to maintain a pretence that keeps the flow of funds coming. In too many places like these, the welfare of the animals caught up in such institutions depends on the goodwill of individuals on-the-spot and their willingness to get involved, to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, and particularly against their false 'friends'. Madame Valadier and Maryvonne were invariably the allies of such people, always available for consultation, advice, and other support. Their names and their faces were little known to the public, as they wanted it, honor and publicity going to the SNDA instead. And it is not amiss to note that mother and daughter were both aware of the dangers involved in their work, taking many precautions in order to ensure their personal safety. But the Valadiers were soldiers, never 'off duty', or 'out of touch' for any length of time, never flinching in what they felt they had to do. (Information concerning the physical circumstances in which Madame Validier's body was found, which filtered through the police barrage, lead this author to conclude that she was tortured before she was allowed to die. If this is so, then the author is certain that this incredibly strong-willed woman died without ever an instant regretting a single act of animal defense that led her to that end. Indeed, she would have spit in the eyes of her torturers.)
After Madame Valadier's murder, when the Police were discreetly spearheading an effort to get her foundation turned over to two 'animal defenders' guaranteed not to follow in her footsteps, one person single-handedly stepped in to block that, and what was to all intents and purposes a 'done' deal. Those directly concerned with the running of the SNDA were, each and every one, in agreement with this 'transmission of authority', including the transfer of the funds in the foundation's treasury, until this single individual stepped in and pushed them all to oppose that transfer, not least because the candidate designated by the police as 'Maryvonne's choice' had, as sole qualification for running a national animal defense foundation, his experience as director of an SPA in central France, where the main activity was maintaining a shelter for stray dogs, the conditions of which had already been, for some time, denounced on the internet, with photos exposing violations of the law, all of which neither Madame Valadier, nor Maryvonne could ever have tolerated.
This phony takeover attempt having been averted at the 11th hour, the members of the foundation's Board suddenly awakened to the possible personal interests each might have in the future functioning of the foundation. Never having found collaborators of her own quality and exceptional commitment, Madame Valadier had settled for 'collaborators' who lent her their names and their prestige, but who kept their noses out of her work, which she kept strictly to herself and Maryvonne. After the Foundation's rescue from its first takeover attempt, these persons (exclusively women, for Andrée Valadier felt that most animal abusers are men and hence she profoundly distrusted that sex) jumped into the fray (certainly with police encouragement, the aim undoubtedly being to ensure that the Valadiers' foundation did not end up in the hands of anyone who might attempt to follow in their footsteps). Under these 'directors', Madame Valadier's work has been 'dumbed down', meaning that the foundation continues to exist, but with no impact on the status of animals in French society, which is just what the powers that be expect of all French animal defense associations.
Yet, there are some here (for this/these murder/s could not have been carried out by one person alone) who know/s the truth about the Valadiers' deaths (for it is 'officially' asserted that Maryvonne committed suicide after murdering her mother). Those who carried out this crime were people who (there are not, after all, 36 possibilities to be envisaged) either were themselves in the government at that time, and able to give orders to the Criminal Police about handling this case, or the people responsible for this murder were, and still are, protected by someone who was in the government at that time and able to render them this service. Shall we note, as an aside, that at the top of the chain of command of the various French polices at the time was the Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy?
Whatever, French animal defense associations and foundations (with one exception, the high-profile founder of which is ceaselessly discredited in the media as a 'crackpot', too) are in step with the unspoken imperative that animal exploitation in France should not be threatened with real change. Change is tolerable only as a subject of discussion, pie-in-the-sky for some eternally future day, nothing more. French animal defense organizations should channel the public's concern and financial support into deadends, while animal exploitation, which generates such vast wealth in so many industries, continues to function unhindered.
The animal defenders the Valadiers inspired, bereft of her vision and the tool of her foundation, while facing so much corruption in society's institutions, may see only one real way to proceed with their work, that is, by intervening directly with consumers, informing and educating (a task Andrée Valadier had made her own), so that those who pay the revenues reaped from animal suffering will contribute to this no longer. Consumers vote every time they buy, or do not buy, the products of animal suffering. And when they choose to consume these products anyway, they are only contributing to their own de-humanization. For the products of animal suffering are, without exception, physically and morally degrading to Man..
Yes, at the same time that certain consumer products exploit animals, these same products exploit, as well, the very consumers who are hoodwinked into buying them. The consciousness of this mutual exploitation is knowledge which the profiteers do not want consumers to wake up to. For when they do, they will wake up to the truth of what Andrée and Maryvonne Valadier spent their lives demonstrating :
At the core of human dignity, there is also justice for the animals.'
NB : The reader may be interested to know that Guenady has written a fictionalized account of this murder in the book, 'Don't Defend Animals', available from the publisher, Trafford, or on Amazon.
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